rose red + snow white

I'm working on a bunch of paintings at once these days.  This is the first one that got finished!  It's for a show in July, and it will have a sister piece to go with it... a diptych, if you're fancy.  

Click to see it bigger!

The show is fairy tale themed.  You know I love a good, obscure fairy tale.  You know what else I love?  Flowers, and vintage clothes, and patterns.  So all those things got wrapped up into this painting.  

It's acrylic on board, by the way, and 16"x16" square.  Haven't had it framed yet but I'm thinking something wood and vintage looking.  Usually framing is my least favorite part (who knows who will end up buying it, and what they'll like), but I can't wait to see this one all ready-to-hang.

As usual, I did a butt load of sketching before leaping into the painting.  Can you believe I really haven't done much bear drawing?  I just wanted him to be really BIG with a cute face.  And a crown.  Because if you know this fairy tale, then you know he is a prince, after all.  

I like post-its for compositions.  If you hate your drawing then you can just peel them off and throw them away.  

Yeah, flowers.  I had a moment where I thought I might do teenage versions of the sisters, and make them more contemporary, but the littler versions won.  As soon as I had the idea to put them in little mod dresses it was over with.  I might, however, still put those heart-shaped sunglasses on Snow White...

More comin'!

rosie flo's fashion show give-away!

Been a while since I had a proper give-away on this blog!  Here's what what's up for grabs: a Rosie Flo's Coloring Fashion Show set by Roz Streeten, from Chronicle Books!  

As part of the give-away, Chronicle sent me my own set to color in however I liked, so here's how that went:

The set comes with lots and lots and LOTS of little figures to color in.  They don't have faces or bodies, so you get to color those parts in yourself.  You can make them look like your friends or your favorite movie stars, but I mostly made them short-haired ladies.

                            

There's a little camera, for when your tiny fashion show takes place.

This would be a super fun, very time consuming project for a little gal.  There is a ton of stuff to color in.

I colored mine with Dr. Ph Martin's watercolor inks.  I had a bunch of bottles of this stuff, and the color is so bright and vivid, but also transparent so it didn't obscure any of the extremely delicate line art!

I painted little faces on them...

And then set up the pop-out stage for a little teeny fashion show.  This thing looks sort of complex, but it was surprisingly easy to put together.  I did it without even looking at the directions.  See the tiny runway??

A helper.  She tried to climb in.

The set comes with an audience, too!  And little pop-out chairs!  There's a ton of other audience members that I didn't color in the background there, too.

I tried to make the one on the far right look like me because I liked that dress!

This was easily my favorite of all the dresses. 

Yep that little camera became a cat toy about 4 seconds after the above photo was taken...

"Meow I like it meow meow!"

TO ENTER:

Just leave a comment with your e-mail address in it!

The winner will be announced next Friday, April 20th!

Random number selector-style.

If you win Chronicle will send you a free Coloring Fashion Show of your very own.  Pretty good trade for one lousy comment!

Good luck!

The contest is closed.  

flower heads and cake ladies

I did these sketches for what was maybe going to be a stationary set, but it didn't pan out.  What a bummer.  I hate it when that happens.  

The idea was that they would be black line art on white paper, and they would come with a little watercolor set and you could color them yourself.  

As far as the designs go, I was just having fun, really.  They are marker and pencil,sketches and they're not the best drawings, but they give you a pretty good idea.  I probably would have fancied them up with a brush pen if they it had been a go.  Brush pens are fun things. 

Things I like: flowers, fancy ladies, beautiful desserts, and the 18th century fashion.  If you couldn't tell.  

And then there was this weirdo one withe the octopus hair thrown in.  

I like markers a lot, even though my marker technique (if there is such a thing in the case of markers) is pretty 'whatever'.  

Frustrating days lately, you guys.  Really stupidly tough!!  I can't seem to get any projects off the ground, for reasons that are utterly mystifying (to me at least).  I don't wanna bitch out on my blog, because that's sort of yucky, but then again why not?  It's part of the deal when you're an artist that depends on other folks/institutions to put your work out there.  Your s#*% gets rejected sometimes!  

Anyway.  On to the next!